“The Perils of Privilege”, Mutant Poodle, 18 Sept 2012. Explains a lot about the manifold dysfunctions and idiocies of America’s elites. FM has asked “Are our leaders on goof gas?” No, they’re just so disconnected from the real world that they act as if they are, and this article does a good job of explaining why and how this hapens.

“Money and power“, Agony in 8 Fits, Feb 012. Lethally detailed revelation of Megan McArdle’s profoundly corrupting ties to her paymasters, the Koch brothers. Articles like this never seem to appear in the mainstream media, yet explain a great deal of the bizarre advice offered by pundits like David Brooks, Tom Friedman, Megan McArdle, et al.

“Who is John Galt?”, Drift Glass, August 2012. Savage satirical dissection of the delusional worldview of conservatives. The photoshopped illustration that tops the article is worth the read just by itself.

Since I am new to this site I missed all or most of the above posts. I am also not sure whether to post my coments here or at the original article so if I am choosing incorrectly please disabus me. With regard to Japan, Americans may be reading Japan wrong. If you havn’t already done so I strongly recommend that you read Eamonn Fingleton’s In the Jaws of the Dragon: America’s Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Dominance (2008).

There is a large body of experts who believe China has structural problems as serious — or more so — than the US. They’ve outgrown their economic and political models, always long and difficult to change. They’ve passed the Lewis Point, have massive private and public sector loan burdens, and demographic headwinds (“China will grow old before it grows rich”).

Perhaps the best place to start reading about China’s weaknesses is China Financial Markets by Michael Pettis (Prof Finance, Peking U).

And, of course, we’ve covered this at the FM website in these posts about China’s weaknesses:

Goes to show, that just because you have read a lot of history is not the same as an understanding of same. Conclusions draw on shaky historical grounds, like the reason for building the Trancontinental railroad, or comment on the “Norse” without having knowledge of the differences between the “Norse” from present day Denmark and Norway. And there are many more example of oversimplification in drawing conclusion on the future of China by extrapolate certain events in Chinese history..

Yes, I did notice that the post was from Young J Kim and I did find his article interesting although I disagreed in some of his historic extrapolation and in some of his historic “facts” it was still worthwhile reading.